Peppercorn Street

by Anna Jacobs

  The woman only glanced at the card before saying, ‘That’s fine. Look, why don’t you put your baby’s buggy in the children’s area, then we’ll take down the membership details. You’ll be able to keep an eye on her as you look for books and she won’t disturb people as much from there.’ She indicated a glass-walled room to one side, filled with bright posters, toys and small chairs.

  ‘Thank you. That’ll be such a relief. I’m lost without a book.’

  ‘You should join one of our reading groups.’

  ‘Maybe I will.’ Janey walked round the library, choosing the four books she was allowed, wishing it was more. Still, this library wasn’t far to walk. She could come here two or three times a week.

  As she waited to take out her books, the same woman who’d enrolled her, whose name badge said Nicole, came across with some brochures. ‘I thought these might be useful to help you settle in. You must go and see the abbey ruins when the weather gets finer. You get such a sense of peace there.’

  She pointed. ‘There are some tatty paperbacks in those boxes over there. People bring them in rather than throw them away. You can take one or two each time you come in. Keep them if you like, but if you don’t want them, we’d be grateful if you’d bring them back again.’

  ‘I don’t have many books yet because I’m just setting up home. Can I really keep them?’

  ‘Yes, of course.’ She smiled and lowered her voice. ‘Take half a dozen this time, as a welcome-to-the-town present.’

  There! Janey thought as she moved across and found two of her favourite novels immediately, I did have a birthday present after all. It seemed like an omen.

  Retrieving Millie, she walked out, feeling considerably cheered up. Now she’d have something to do tonight. You never felt as lonely with a book in your hand. She’d have somewhere to store books too. From now on she’d keep an eye on the cheap books in charity shops. She’d rather eat bread and jam for tea than not have a book to read.

  There was a small supermarket on the other side of the street from the library, so she nipped in to buy some food for tonight. She’d do a proper shop tomorrow, make lists, be efficient. How her old home economics teacher would laugh at that! It had been her worst subject. Now, it was cook properly or eat rubbish.

  She was tired but felt hopeful as she trudged home, even though it had started to rain. Her life was starting up again.

  Chapter Two

  Nicole Gainsford, watched the young mother leave the library, smiling now. Was the poor child raising a baby on her own? She must be if Just Girls was helping her. They took in young mothers without any support systems from all over the county.

  She was going to make more effort to revitalise the young mothers’ reading group at the library. These days you had to provide far more than a place to borrow books or go on the Internet. They had quite a few community groups going now. Some of the oldies had cheered up enormously at having somewhere to go and something to do.

  Then another customer took her attention and she didn’t think about the young mother again. What she did think about when she had a moment was the difficulty she was having with her teenage sons, especially William, who was going through an aggressive patch and was giving her a lot of grief. But also Paul, who had become very withdrawn lately and would hardly say a word to anyone.

  She set off for home, on foot today because she had no shopping to do. Inevitably her thoughts turned to her husband. The two of them had drifted apart during the past few years, no denying that. She hadn’t noticed at first and when she had, she’d tried to do something to bring them together. Only he didn’t seem interested in his family any more.

  In fact, she was wondering if he was having an affair. He was sometimes late home, sat staring into space a lot, had become very secretive about his emails, protecting his area of the computer with a password so that she and the boys couldn’t access his stuff. Who was he emailing that was so secret?

  She slowed down as she got closer to their house. She dreaded going home these days.

  It was even worse that evening. William was outright rude to her and refused to gather his dirty clothes together for her to wash.

  ‘All right,’ she yelled. ‘Let them stay dirty. Anything not in the laundry basket in the next five minutes you can wash yourself.’

  Paul came down two minutes later with his dirty clothes.

  ‘Where’s your brother?’

  He shrugged.

  She waited a full ten minutes. No sign of William. So she set the washing off.

  Five minutes later he sauntered into the kitchen and dumped his dirty washing all over the floor.

  ‘Too late,’ she said. ‘You’ll have to do it yourself.’

  He kicked the nearest clothes across to her. ‘You’re the mother. It’s your bloody job to do the washing.’

  She kicked them back. ‘You keep saying you’re not a child. Well, grown-ups put their own things in the laundry basket.’ She was sick of this argument which they had every week.

  He moved across to her, towering over her from his newly acquired six foot. ‘I’m not – doing – the – washing.’

  For a minute she thought he was going to hit her, but he just shoved her towards the utility room, knocking her against the wall, and kicking the clothes in her direction. Then he slouched off up the stairs, yelling over his shoulder, ‘Call me when tea’s ready.’

  She went to sit down, feeling shaky. She’d really thought he was going to thump her. She’d been frightened of her own son. That was bad.

  She didn’t feel like cooking so hauled out some noodles and a jar of sauce and heated it up. That’d have to do.

  She hesitated to call William, not wanting to seem as if she was obeying his orders, but in the end she stood at the foot of the stairs and yelled, ‘Tea’s ready.’

  Both boys came down. Paul sat and ate quietly. She couldn’t understand why he wouldn’t talk to her. She kept meaning to get him on his own and insist he tell her what was wrong, but the opportunity had never seemed to arise. He made sure of that.

  ‘There’s no meat with this,’ William complained.

  ‘No. I didn’t have time to defrost any. Your father’s supposed to help with the shopping and cooking but he’s been a bit forgetful lately.’

  ‘That’s women’s work.’ He stared at her challengingly.

  She was too tired to take him up on that. How a son of hers had turned into such a male chauvinist, she didn’t understand.

  As he went to get the milk out of the fridge, she said sharply, ‘Don’t drink from the carton this time.’

  He grunted and slammed a glass down on the surface so hard she expected it to shatter.

  There was still no sign of Sam by the time the meal had ended, nor had he rung.

  He didn’t feel like part of the family any more.

  The next morning Janey felt a lot better about the world because she and Millie had both slept really well in their new flat, right through the night. There were supposed to be some neighbours, but she hadn’t seen anyone else nor had she heard a sound from the flat above hers or the one on the same floor.

  She yawned and stretched, then crept out of the bedroom while her daughter was still sleeping and made herself a cup of tea.

  After they’d both had breakfast, she made a careful list of the things she needed and went to check out the supermarkets properly, looking at all the specials before she made her choice. She came back with two loaded bags of shopping dangling from the sides of the buggy and a few big things in the tray underneath.

  Carrots were two bags for the price of one, so she’d be eating a lot of carrots during the coming week. That was all right. Carrots were healthy. When she thought how fussy she’d been about eating before she left home she cringed, then smiled ruefully. Her dad only liked steak, chops or sausages with his nightly chips, so that was what they had.

  At the Just Girls hostel, taking her turn to help in the kitchen, Janey had discovered that she enjoye
d cooking, though she didn’t know many recipes yet. She intended to learn more about cooking now she was on her own. It’d be something new to do and you could get books on it from the library and copy down recipes, so it needn’t cost anything extra.

  She left Millie in the buggy at the foot of the stairs with the front door locked, as she rushed up to the flat with the shopping. She only put away the frozen stuff because she felt so guilty at leaving the baby on her own in the hall. But how else did you get the shopping into the flat when you were going out straight away?

  There was washing to do but she couldn’t face it yet, so went down again and gave Millie a smacking big kiss on her fat, soft cheek. ‘Shall we go for a walk?’ She decided the gurgle meant yes. They both loved being out of doors and luckily it was fine today, if rather cold.

  She thought she heard a door click shut upstairs and wondered if someone had been watching her.

  She decided to explore her own street first, remembering the elegant old lady who had stopped to stare at her yesterday then walked on up the slope. Did someone like that live in Peppercorn Street too?

  The street was about three hundred metres long, and went from rather shabby near the high street to marginally better where Janey’s flat was situated, about a hundred yards away from the shops. She was surprised at how posh the houses were at the upper end and stopped several times to admire the older ones. Lovely, they were, with coloured glass in the doors and in the small windows on either side, fancy brickwork and big gardens behind low stone walls.

  It would be nice to learn more about the history of architecture. She’d put that on her list when she got back. She was making a list of things she could learn about from the library, both to fill the time without costing anything and because she didn’t want Millie looking down on her when she got older for knowing so little. As a result of getting pregnant she hadn’t even been able to take her A levels.

  She found that the street was a cul-de-sac, which was why it was fairly quiet, except for cars parking at the lower end and moving off after their owners had done their shopping.

  She nearly missed the narrow path for pedestrians between the two top houses, then went back to peer down it. Curious to know where it led, she went along it. There was just enough room for someone on foot to pass the buggy. Two buggies would have had trouble squeezing past one another.

  Halfway along someone had dropped a garish takeaway box, so she picked it up and put it into the litter bin at the end. There, that was better. The path looked pretty again. It had a low wall at the far end, where it curved to the right and opened out into another street, and surely those were daffodils poking up along its base? They’d look lovely against the grey, stone wall when they came into bloom.

  The next street wasn’t a cul-de-sac, but it also had a footpath between the houses at the top of the slope, so she followed that rather than going back down to High Street. This second path led to a small park at the end of the next street. Great! She and Millie could come here in the warmer weather. It’d be nice to walk under leafy green trees and look at flowers. Maybe there’d be a children’s playground. She explored the park, which didn’t take long, and sure enough there were a few swings in one corner, including baby swings. She thought Millie would be old enough to sit in one by summer.

  Beyond the park was an area with one or two parked cars and a big gate at one end. Over it a sign said ‘Grove Allotments. Owners only’. She went across to peer over the gate at the rows of neat plots, though there wasn’t a lot growing in them at this time of year, of course. Some parts were covered in straw or a sort of matting, probably to protect the last remaining vegetables from frost.

  Her granddad had always grown his own vegetables and she’d helped him from when she was little. He’d been dead for five years now but she still remembered how much she’d enjoyed gardening with him and how delicious the fresh fruit and vegetables had tasted. During the past year or two, she’d grown a few things in her parents’ garden. Her dad hated gardening, hated anything that made him get out of his armchair after he got home from work.

  An old man was working on one of the plots. He smiled and raised his hand in greeting, just like her granddad used to do. After a moment’s hesitation, she waved back. You had to be careful who you spoke to these days, but he looked friendly and unthreatening, and he was quite old and scrawny, not really a threat to her because she was tall and quite strong, had been good at sport. That was another thing she missed.

  Don’t go there! she told herself firmly.

  Turning, she walked back towards her street, wondering what to do with herself for the rest of the day. Washing, of course. There was always washing when you had a baby. She’d had to do a lot of it by hand because there was only one washing machine in the B&B, and times for its use were restricted. In the new flats there was a proper laundry room with two coin-in-the-slot washing machines and two separate tumble dryers, also some washing lines out at the back. That was luxury to her. Not that she’d be using the tumble dryers except in an emergency. Far too expensive.

  There must be another woman in the flats because this morning there had been some women’s clothes hanging outside, but Janey still hadn’t seen anyone else going in and out.

  Washing wouldn’t take up the whole day, though. Nor would playing with Millie, who still slept a lot. Should she go to the meeting at the Just Girls shop? No, she couldn’t face it yet. It was the time of day when Millie had a nap and she wanted to settle her daughter into a proper routine now. She sighed. Life felt so shut in lately. And boring. She could see why people living on their own got depressed.

  The people from Just Girls had said they’d try to get her a television. That would help pass the evenings, but she wasn’t going to watch it in the daytime like one of her mother’s neighbours, who only seemed to be able to talk about the latest TV show.

  If things hadn’t gone so badly wrong for her, Janey would be at university now, meeting people, going out and having fun. It wasn’t fair. It wasn’t her fault she’d got pregnant. He had forced her.

  But then, if it hadn’t happened, Millie wouldn’t exist. She had to remember that and not let life get her down. She hadn’t expected to love her baby so much, given the circumstances.

  The sky was darkening already, even though the days were getting longer now. She’d better go back.

  She smiled, remembering what her granddad used to say about February: it might be the greyest, coldest month, but its arrival was a sign that spring was round the corner. Perhaps she’d be having a personal spring now that she was more settled, growing in all sorts of new ways.

  Oh, she was being fanciful again! Hadn’t she vowed to stay practical from now on?

  Winifred stared out of her bedroom window as a movement caught her eye. The girl with the baby was walking along the footpath pushing the buggy. Definitely too young to be a mother. Probably no better than she ought to be.

  When the girl stopped to pick up some rubbish, however, Winifred got angry at herself for making judgements on no evidence. Whatever her faults, the girl had the right attitude to rubbish in this throwaway age. Most people would have walked past that garish cardboard box. Winifred had lost count of the number of times she’d picked rubbish up from that path.

  She finished dusting her bedroom and sorting out her clothes, putting away the washing she’d dried in the kitchen yesterday. Then she made her way slowly and carefully down the stairs. At her age, you didn’t dare risk a fall. Two of her friends had broken a hip in falls and one of them hadn’t come out of hospital again. Winifred still missed her.

  She went into the kitchen and got out the bones and shin beef she’d bought from the butcher that morning. There was nothing like home-made soup to warm you in the winter, and a good soup began with good stock.

  She put the radio on to keep herself company then began to chop up an onion, wiping away a tear. It was caused by the onion fumes, she told herself fiercely. She hadn’t been brought up to comp
lain about life, however dull and lonely it had become, and she wasn’t going to start now.

  When the stock was simmering, she took out her diary and began her daily entry. Not that she had anything special to report for herself, though she did mention the girl with the baby moving into the flats and the way she’d jumped to conclusions about her. She also commented regularly on the issues of the times: climate change, pirates at sea, demonstrations, terrorism, the more idiotic celebrities. There’d been a demonstration on the television news the night before. Had these young people nothing better to do than act like hooligans?

  There had also been another young man killed in Afghanistan. Why did countries do this to their young men? How many of this generation’s young women had lost loved ones in the current war? How many mothers had lost their sons?

  She didn’t know whether anyone would read her diaries after she was gone, but she’d asked in her will that they be lodged with the local heritage centre. After all, the diaries went right back to her girlhood before World War II, and she’d hardly missed a day in all that time. One day, perhaps, a historian would find them useful. Look at what had happened to the Mass Observation diaries from the War. They’d been turned into some splendid books.

  Nicole got up early and tackled her husband after he’d had his shower. ‘Sam, I’m getting really worried about William.’

  ‘He doesn’t look ill to me.’

  ‘He isn’t. It’s the way he behaves. I thought he was going to hit me yesterday.’

  That caught his full attention, which nothing much did these days.

  ‘What! No, he’d never do that. Definitely not. We brought him up properly.’

  ‘Since he met these new friends, he seems to have forgotten all we ever taught him. He’s turning into a proper chauvinist. Our son! A chauvinist!’

  Sam sighed. ‘Give it a break. You’re always on about women’s lib. We’re past that now.’